General practitioner and hospital owner, Dr. Aileen Ruiz, opened The BIG EASY Animal Hospital in 2010. A native of Miami, Florida, Dr. Ruiz attended Florida International University and graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Biology in 1998. Following graduation, she attended Ross University, School of Veterinary Medicine and was awarded her Doctorate of Veterinary Medicine in 2003. She then pursued a year internship in New Orleans’s, Southeast Veterinary Specialists, and completed further training in emergency care, internal medicine, surgery and dermatology. In 2005, after Hurricane Katrina destroyed much of New Orleans’s, she came to Pittsburgh with her pets to rebuild her life and continue to practice veterinary medicine. A member of the American Veterinary Medical Association, the Pennsylvania Veterinary Medical Association, the Western Pennsylvania Veterinary Medical Association and the Louisiana Veterinary Medical Association, Dr. Ruiz now proudly owns the only Hispanic veterinary hospital in the city of Pittsburgh, the BIG EASY Animal Hospital located in the Lawrenceville area, her own neighborhood.